


Don't You Know For Years You've Haunted Me

by virtualsilver



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Gwen has Gwyneth's powers, Gwen is prescient, M/M, and she doesn't have it all at once, but her foreknowledge isn't perfect or complete, her visions come without her being able to prompt or control them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26677381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtualsilver/pseuds/virtualsilver
Summary: Gwen has inherited a recessive trait that has lurked in her ancestors' blood for generations: she is prescient. She can see flashes of where the timeline is heading and can feel when something - or someone - changes it.She tries to use her foreknowledge to change events for the better, but securing the outcome of her interventions proves to be a challenge.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: Bingo Fest 2020





	Don't You Know For Years You've Haunted Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Torchwood Fan Fests](https://torchwoodfanfests.tumblr.com/) 2020 Bingo Fest, for the prompts 'Gwen has some of Gwyneth's powers', 'gifts' and 'bisexuality'. 
> 
> This fic was betaed by the wonderful [violetmessages](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetmessages/pseuds/violetmessages), without whose help and suggestions this fic would be shorter and far less coherent. Any remaining errors are mine.

Gwen was a happy child. She was beloved by her parents, liked by her mates at school, and she had enough friends that she was never wanting for company.

She was a people person, always had been, but sometimes she told her friends or family that she needed some time alone, and would go to her room, or a corner at the playground, or whenever she could find that would put some physical distance between her and others, and she would focus her gaze on something no one else could see. She would whisper under her breath, or stay perfectly still, and her entire demeanour would change. Gwen was a lively, animated child, she was always talking, always playing, she was so expressive. But when she got like that, she looked... withdrawn. Absent.

Her parents and teachers brushed it off as a child’s harmless quirk, and she did it less and less as she grew older, until the habit petered out completely. 

***

Unlike all of her little friends, Gwen never asked for a sibling. Not even once she started kindergarten and most of her classmates had at least one. Not when they talked about their siblings with her, not when she visited their houses and saw them play and share toys and games and rituals. Not ever. 

Mary, who didn’t particularly want a second child, was grateful. She didn’t wonder why.

***

Gwen was always a creative child, always making up stories, talking to imaginary friends. This is common in young children, and the fact that she was so good at stringing tales together meant that she was very smart, so Alan had reassured Mary and Geraint. 

Alan was a life-long friend of Geraint’s who’d gone into child psychology. Mary, a first-time mother, had taken advantage of this resource by posing all sorts of questions and worries to him whenever they came up, and Alan, thankfully, was a darling who would happily indulge her. He didn’t mind at all, and in fact seemed to enjoy talking about Mary and Geraint’s perfectly healthy little girl. He was used to seeing less happy cases.

Among the reasons why Alan enjoyed learning about Gwen was her extraordinary imagination. He’d been very impressed that the little girl, no older than six, would consistently talk about the same few imaginary friends through a remarkably long (for someone that young) period of time. Gwen had her favourite characters that she’d created, and they were the ones that she brought up most often, but she would make up others if she felt the situation called for it. Her favourites were very distinct, she’d imagined very peculiar, quite strong personalities for them, and Alan, who’d dedicated his life to studying the inner workings of young minds, was always happy to hear her chattering when he visited.

“Jack likes your suit,” she told him on one such occasion, when a work function ran a bit long and he didn’t have time to go home and change before visiting the Coopers. He was normally dressed more casual for a roast with friends, so it made sense the little girl had noticed. “He thinks you look handsome in it.”

Alan laughed good-naturedly. “Does he? Did he say that?” It was cute how she’d fleshed out her characters so much, but, being so little, didn’t realise widespread social norms such as how a man wouldn’t likely be calling another man ‘handsome’ so openly. This was why he loved kids; they were such an interesting reflection of societal norms.

“No,” Gwen told him decisively. She wasn’t looking at him, instead peering through the door and into the kitchen, where her mother was putting the finishing touches on dinner. “But I know he likes suits like that. Ianto wears them all the time.” 

How precious was that, thought Alan. Her little imaginary friend wore three-piece suits. He knew that Jack wore a big grey-blue coat, even in the summer. She’d mentioned it _twice_ in his presence before. She must have seen a coat like that that she’d really liked if she had assigned it to ‘Jack’.

Alan knew by now that Jack represented the leader archetype in Gwen’s stories, someone on par with her and sometimes even above her. That was rare in children so young, yet Gwen displayed a willingness to follow ‘Jack’ just as often as she clashed with him. It was the character of hers that Alan found the most fascinating, the most peculiar one. 

“Does Ianto look handsome in them, then?” He asked her. He loved hearing her stories, they were so full of life. She might be a writer when she grew up.

Gwen nodded. “Yes! Jack thinks Ianto is more handsome than you. But you look nice, still.”

That made Alan laugh again. Kids were so much fun to talk to at this age, and Gwen more than most.

“You have a watch?” Gwen asked him out of nowhere. She’d turned to look at him now, interested in hearing his answer for some reason.

“A watch? You want to know the time?” Alan played along, wondering what the little girl was thinking of now. He showed her the watch in his left wrist. “I have this one. I bought it on a trip to-”

“No, not like that,” Gwen interrupted him. She was frowning, which was really cute. She was such an expressive child. “Like a round one. Here,” she pointed to the left front pocket on his waistcoat. “On a chain.”

Alan’s brows lifted in surprise. “A stopwatch?”

“Yes!” Gwen shouted, jumping up and down in excitement.

“Gwen, sweetie, inside voice,” her mother chided gently from the kitchen.

“Sorry!” Gwen shouted, only marginally less loud. “Topwatch! You have one?”

Alan wondered where Gwen might have seen a stopwatch before, probably some old show on the telly; they weren’t exactly current fashion. 

“No, sorry. I don’t have one of those. They’re a bit old-fashioned.” Alan told her, and her face fell. “They’re not very common anymore. People don’t carry those around normally,” he explained, unsure if she understood what ‘old-fashioned’ was.

Gwen sighed, but her disappointment didn’t last long. “Yeah. Ianto likes old.”

“Oh? Ianto has one?” Alan wondered, used to Gwen’s quirks. ‘Ianto’ was an interesting character as well. Alan couldn’t quite pin him down. Sometimes the Caregiver, sometimes The Lover; Gwen called him her best friend sometimes. 

Gwen nodded fiercely. “He likes the button on top!” 

Alan grinned at her explanation. That was such a funny explanation for why someone would have a stopwatch, trust a six-year-old to come up with something like that.

“Alright, missy, go wash your hands,” her mother told her as she carried the dishes from the kitchen to the living room table. “Dinner’s ready.”

Gwen pivoted and ran towards the bathroom. 

“And no running!” She screamed after her daughter, knowing as she did that it was futile. She sighed and shook her head. “That girl…” She turned to her friend with a long-suffering look. “I’d say sorry for letting her badger you with her stories, but…”

Alan grinned. “You know I love hearing them.”

“You’re mad.”

“I’m a psychologist. Of course I’m mad.”

“What did Rhys have to say today?” ‘Rhys’ was Gwen’s favourite imaginary friend. Apparently she was going to marry him.

“No Rhys this time, but Jack likes my suit.”

“Does he now?” Mary looked duly amused.

“He likes suits apparently. But I think he was disappointed I didn’t have a stopwatch to go with it.”

Before Mary could respond, they heard the thundering little footsteps that signalled Gwen running back to the living room. 

“Gwen Elizabeth Cooper, what did I tell you about running in the house?”

***

There were days where Gwen felt weird. Something like nauseous, but not. Those days she felt like a camera lens might, when the shot looked off and it had to autofocus, moving back and forth, looking for the exact point where the image would clear up and make sense again. Except it wasn’t her, exactly. More like the world was settling around her after being moved slightly off kilter. Like a record dial being lifted for a second before being let go and it having to find the right track again to continue playing. (Gwen had never seen a record player, but the image was in her mind anyway.)

She was always a little fuzzy on days like that. 

A few times, she even saw things that she knew hadn’t been true before, but now they were. She knew something had changed, though she couldn’t understand exactly what or why.

She saw a man, sometimes. A madman running around in a long many-coloured scarf, or with a striped suit, or with a leather jacket, rearranging reality all around him, uncaring that he was giving a little girl in Swansea disorienting headaches and something she shouldn’t yet be able to identify as a hangover, but she knew felt all too much like it anyway. He always had a funny-looking gadget that lit up, and more often than not a couple of friends to get him into or out of trouble. He was always a man, except for the times that she would be a woman. 

Gwen was a little worried about him, about what he was doing, but she didn’t think he was a problem, exactly. She got like this sometimes, about people she couldn’t quite pin down. But none of them had ever made her feel sick like this.

She had briefly thought that maybe he was a friend? But that didn’t feel right. He wasn’t an enemy though, that much she was sure of. But she thought he was good? Or, that he _did_ good. 

Eventually she figured it out. Whatever he was, however he was (how did a man change faces like Gwen changed outfits?), he was a friend of a friend. _Jack_ trusted him. Jack loved him. 

Once that became clear, she could see the man saving them when they didn’t know what to do. When the scary robots came to kill them, the man showed up. That’s what the man did, she realised. He saved people. That’s why Jack loved him.

That made sense, Jack was a good person. She knew this with unshakeable certainty, had known this since she was too little to start kindergarten yet. Jack was _good_.

Alright, for Jack, and for the people the man saved, she could stand the unmoored feeling the man gave her. Even if she did hate the dizziness.

She felt better once she figured it out. The dizziness didn’t stop, but she knew it probably meant people were being saved. That was better than them not being saved. She could deal with feeling a bit sick for that. 

***

“Mum?” Gwen asked her when she was five, after an appointment with her pediatrician. “Why’d Dr. Wallace not take my blood?”

“What?” Mary said distractedly. Most of her focus was on navigating the crowded street while figuring out which way the place they were supposed to meet Geraint was. She wasn’t familiar with this part of town, Dr. Wallace had moved his practise the previous month, and this was her first time bringing Gwen to the new place. 

“My blood,” Gwen said loudly, earning a few looks from passersby. Mostly amused, so Mary didn’t pay it any mind. “For… tests? Doctors do tests, no?”

Oh, there it was! Mary pulled Gwen by the hand in the direction of the coffee place they’d agreed on. 

“They don’t need to do that every time, love. Come on, now. Your Tad will be waiting for us.” 

Bloody doctor appointments, always running late. You’d think they’d learn how to schedule after years of having a practise, but oh _no_. _Forty minutes_ they’d had to wait before they were called. At least Gwen was good at entertaining herself. Some of the children in that waiting room had given her a glimpse of just how lucky she was that her daughter could sit still for half an hour making up her own stories. 

Her little girl hadn’t got bored until their wait was almost over, and then she’d only wanted to tell Mary about ‘Tosh’ and how smart she was, and some story about her winning a fight with a virus. Mary supposed being to the doctor’s must have put the idea of viruses in her head, there were flyers and posters about healthy habits all over the waiting room, and Gwen had learned to spell out words several months ago at school. She hadn’t stopped reading out random words since then.

The idea of outsmarting a virus was very precious, Mary had thought.

“Oh, that’s good!” Gwen exclaimed, swinging their joined hands back and forth as they walked. “Don’ like the poking.”

“The injections, you mean?” They were almost at the shop. As they approached, Mary caught sight of Geraint having a coffee and reading a newspaper through the big glass windows.

“Yeah! Owen’s careful but it’s still bad.”

Mary was too used to hearing Gwen mention her ‘friends’ in everyday situations to ask her about it. Geraint looked up from the paper then and saw them just as they were reaching the doors. His face lit up when he saw them, and Mary beamed at him as Gwen let go of her hand and ran to her dad for a hug. 

Yes, she’d really lucked out with her wonderful family.

***

Gwen’s creativity had its downsides, however. 

At least once every month, Gwen woke up in tears from vivid and terrifying nightmares. Sometimes, she just needed to be held for a little while until she calmed down, quiet tears that dried up after a minute and gave way to exhaustion soon enough, and Gwen fell back asleep without much fuss. 

Other times, though... Other times, Gwen woke up screaming, shaking, huge sobs rocking her small frame as she gasped for air as if she was drowning. Those times, it could take up to an hour to calm her down, and she’d refuse to let go of her or Geraint to go back to sleep.

They stopped asking what she’d dreamed on those times after she’d told them she didn’t want to talk about it, that it just made it worse. But that hadn’t been until Gwen was 9, and Mary still remembered some of the awful things Gwen had dreamed about when she was little. Some were the typical things a child might dream about: scary monsters that wanted to hurt her and her friends, a big monster chasing her, an heroic soldier who sacrificed his life to save the world (she’d have to be more careful checking what Gwen watched on the telly), a big animal that was being hurt by bad guys and she couldn’t help it, a friend being hurt or leaving her behind. 

Some… were worse. 

One time when she was seven, Mary had been woken up by Gwen’s screams. It wasn’t the first time Gwen had woken her up with a nightmare, not even the first time she’d woken up screaming, to the point where she and Geraint had lost most of the panic that instinctively came from hearing your child screaming in the middle of the night. That time, they’d both ran to her. Never in her thirty-eight years had Mary heard such a heart-wrenching sound. 

Gwen had been on the floor, tangled in her sheet. She hadn’t stopped screaming even when both her parents sat with her, rubbed her back soothingly, and tried to talk to her, tell her it was just a dream. She screamed herself hoarse that night, then cried until Geraint had been so worried she might get dehydrated that he insisted on bringing her water and making her drink some of it, even if she didn’t want to. They took her to their bed, scared to leave her alone, where she cried herself to sleep, hiccuping and trembling in her pink care bear pyjamas where they laid her down between the two of them. 

She didn’t say much that night, but she did say what had affected her so strongly: “They kill Ianto.” 

The sobs didn’t stop until she fell asleep.

***

They took her to a therapist after that. 

The woman said that Gwen had a very active imagination, but she was a healthy, happy little girl beyond that. Better adjusted and brighter than most kids her age, even. She didn’t see anything worrying even after several weeks’ worth of sessions. 

They asked Alan to see her as a patient, to get a second opinion, but even after his sessions with Gwen he agreed with the first therapist’s assessment, with the added caveat that maybe they should monitor the media Gwen consumed more closely, as that could be the reason why she had such vivid bad dreams sometimes. 

Mary wasn’t mollified with the lack of solutions, and a part of her worried that Gwen might have seen something terrible, or god forbid _been_ through something terrible and that’s why she had such distressing dreams. But both professionals had looked for that, she knew, and they were sure nothing like that had happened. 

“It would show up in other ways, Mary. Gwen is very young, if she’d suffered abuse, or even witnessed something very upsetting, she’d be acting very differently. You know she’s always making up stories. But her stories are happy. It’s always about friends she’s made, and how they go on adventures together, or about how she’s going to marry a great man who loves her and have kids with him. There’s nothing in her stories that’s worrying, only in her nightmares. I think she’s just got a special capacity for storytelling, and when she’s asleep she can’t control where the stories go. So sometimes, they’re scary.”

Mary didn’t think Alan appreciated quite _how_ scary Gwen’s nightmares could get. Holding her seven-year-old through that complete breakdown and not being able to do anything about it was going to give _her_ nightmares.

Still, with no other clues to go by, they did their best to make sure she wasn’t watching violent or horror films, and to impress on her that she could talk to them about anything.

A year and a half later, Mary was woken up by Gwen’s sobs again. No screaming this time, at least, she thought groggily as she walked to her daughter’s room in the middle of the night. Geraint had barely stirred. Mary was glad he hadn’t half an hour later, when her daughter told her, still in tears, “They’re going to burn him. They’re going to burn Dad”.

The very next day, Mary called a sleep clinic, and scheduled an appointment with another therapist. 

They still found nothing wrong with her daughter, and so Mary continued to worry.

No amount of prompting Gwen and reassuring her that she wasn’t going to be in trouble, no matter what she said, got them any new revelations, and Gwen didn’t show any reluctance or discomfort in joining any social activity or meeting or discussing anyone in her life, which eased their worries a little.

But the nightmares continued.

***

Gwen was a precocious child in some ways, utterly ordinary in others. 

She was often good with people; but she was also terrible with them sometimes. 

Gwen had a knack for knowing which way people would go, she could foresee what they’d do sometimes, but she couldn’t always see why they’d do it, which meant she had to figure it out herself, and sometimes she got it wrong. That had been a hard life lesson for her, one that she’d taken to heart.

And sometimes, she’d realised around the same time, others - even others who were very close to her - guessed the wrong reasons why _she_ did things, too. This could be avoided by explaining her reasons and her feelings, most of the time. Sometimes, even doing that wouldn’t work if people didn’t believe her. (This made Gwen very angry. Why would she lie? It was stupid.)

But… sometimes, she’d learned - not _always_ , but sometimes, with some things - it was better… not to say. By that, she didn’t mean that it was better to _lie_ , she _hated_ lying, but in some cases it was better to keep some things to herself. 

She was nine when she realised she was different.

Oh, she’d _known_ before that, of course. She’d noticed that other kids didn’t grow up knowing the family they’d have when they were older, didn’t live alongside echoes of so many things that hadn’t come to pass yet, couldn’t tell how things would go before they happened. Most kids didn’t get headaches or dizzy spells when a man with a blue box stuck his fingers into unknown threats halfway around the world. These were all self-evident from a young age, pieces of the puzzle, that would eventually come together to form the big picture. 

The big picture just took her some time. 

It was a big puzzle.

She realised her parents and peers started acting differently when she mentioned her family as she grew older. Her parents were getting progressively more worried the more she shared about her nightmares. Everyone around her, from teachers to friends, seemed to be implying to her that she should have left her friends behind, that she shouldn’t talk about them anymore, that it was _weird_. Susan told her they were too old for ‘imaginary friends’ anymore, and that was the piece that made it click for Gwen.

She’d known the other kids’ friends had been imaginary, unlike hers. She’d known that she was different, that she knew things. She’d known no one believed her when she talked about her family - not the one she already had, but the one she’d form when she was older, Rhys and Jack and Ianto and Tosh and Owen and Anwen and Kai; they didn’t believe they were real. But it wasn’t until Susan Griffiths snidely told her to stop being childish that Gwen realised what she should do.

Stop sharing it. Hide. 

Her parents were worried. Her peers were confused. No one believed it anyway. And as she grew older, Gwen realised that, though it might be hard, the secrecy would also bring a measure of safety to both herself and her family. Her family-to-be. Primary school was a great teacher of what happened when those around you didn’t understand you. Or worse, feared you. 

She needed to be more careful with what she shared, and with whom.

Gwen almost wanted to thank Susan for the insight. Almost.

***

An unexpected result of not talking about them anymore was that… she missed them. She hadn’t had them yet, hadn’t met any of them and wouldn’t for years, but talking about them had made them feel close.

This… felt like a loss.

After much deliberation, an answer came to her. From Ianto. After a fashion.

She should keep a diary.

She just had to be careful about it. She’d write about them as fiction, just stories she was making up. That’s what her parents used to think they were. Characters. Stories.

She couldn’t risk her ‘stories’ getting out, so she’d burn them after. When her parents weren’t home. She did not need them adding ‘arson tendencies’ to their list of things that might be wrong with her; the last thing she needed was to be sent to another therapist. Argh. (They wouldn’t be so bad if she could tell them the truth, not that they’d believe her. Oh, well. Diary it was.)

***

Gwen was twelve years old the first and only time she ran away from home. 

If you asked her, she’d tell you that she _wasn’t_ running away, she just needed to go somewhere and she knew her parents would say no (mostly because they already had), and so she took the change her parents kept on the little cabinet by the door and left by herself. 

She took the bus to Newport and got off right at the stop that was just across her destination. It was her first time taking the bus by herself.

She looked both sides before crossing the street, like she’d been taught to do, then crossed the road to get to the park. It was a sunny Monday afternoon, there were several kids milling around, but her eyes found him immediately. 

She wanted to run to him, hug him, tell him she’d missed him so much. Of course, she knew she couldn’t do that. She hadn’t met him yet.

She could do this for him, though. She wasn’t sure _how_ she’d do it, but damn it, she _would_.

She’d tried changing things before, she was pretty sure she’d mostly worked out what worked and what didn’t. And this was something she _really_ wanted to change. For him. He didn’t deserve this.

She steeled herself and she walked forward.

***

Gwen came out with a bang.

The Cooper family had been having a relaxed dinner, watching the telly while they put away the delicious pasta Geraint had cooked for them, when it happened.

The TV show host made a homophobic joke. Gwen was _not_ amused. But her parents, apparently, were. They _laughed_.

She’d _exploded_.

“How can you laugh at something like that!” 

Her parents had had no idea what she was talking about.

“Is that what you think?” Gwen continued to scream at them. “Is that how you really feel? Is that what you’d say of me? What you’d think of me?”

She realised she wasn’t being the most rational collected person about this, but the blow had been so unexpected, and it had cut all the deeper for it. She hadn’t expected this from _her parents_.

Gwen hurt sometimes, in ways she couldn’t make sense of. She felt so alone at times, no matter how many friends she made, she knew most of them wouldn’t last, knew their bonds were all superficial in comparison to what she’d once have. She missed the friends she’d make, friends she hadn’t even met yet, who had no idea she existed. Not even Jack, who was the only one she could actually approach, given all his future knowledge and his long involvement with Torchwood. But Jack would look at her and see a child, he’d want her safe and out of the way, oh god, he might even try to retcon her, and she understood why, she _did_ , but she couldn’t go through that, she _couldn’t_. 

She was too worried about making such a big change to chance it, anyway. She’d made changes, but some things just felt _wrong_ , wrong down to her bones, and she knew when she was supposed to meet him, and that felt right. No matter how lonely she got, going against that would be like going against herself, her every instinct. She wasn’t sure she could force herself to do it, even if she sometimes wanted to, just to talk to him.

But that was the pain she knew. There were wounds she didn’t even know the edges of, hadn’t learned how to decode yet.

She strained under the callous, careless comments of bigots before she knew what they meant or why they hurt. Even before she learnt what ‘bisexual’ meant, before she really understood what ‘queer’ was, she’d known, on some level, that when people said mean things about those groups, they were saying it about her and her family, her future family. 

But even then, she didn’t expect to hear that sort of callous cruelty from her loving parents.

“Gwen, it was just a joke, sweetheart,” her dad tried to mollify her. 

Big mistake. 

Gwen burst into tears.

***

Gwen was 13 when she learned that male/female relationships aren’t just more common, most people are only attracted to the ‘opposite’ sex. She doesn’t know _how_ she knows it, but she’s sure there are more than just two genders, or sexes even. Her first daughter will marry a person who is neither male nor female. She can’t remember the word they use.

She grew up thinking that everyone could feel attraction to people regardless of gender, because she knew, somehow, that’s what it’d be like for her, and for the man she’d end up marrying, and for her best friends, and for her children. 

Gwen knew that she’d have the biggest crush on this girl who’d transfer to her school from Manchester in sixth form, and that this girl would kiss her on a night out when they’re both drunk, and the next day she’d pretend nothing had happened. 

Gwen knew that she would meet her first girlfriend in her second ever job, and that the relationship would not last long, but it’d be fun, intense, and despite it ending badly, she won’t regret it.

Gwen knew she’d end up marrying a man, and she’d love him madly, and he’d love her just as much, and their love for each other wouldn’t change or erase their bisexuality one bit.

And she realised, as her parents stared at her, puzzled over her reaction to a “harmless” “joke”, that it was important for her to know that the people she loved understood this and accepted her for who she was.

There were things she couldn’t tell them, things she knew to keep from them even as a child, and so many more since she stopped sharing anything about her future family with them, with anyone, but she found that _this_ she needed to share.

So she took a deep breath, and another, and another. She stopped the tears, as much as she could. And once she could talk without her voice breaking, she told them. 

“I’m queer.”

It took another two drawn out conversations to explain to them that no, that didn’t mean she’s _only_ into girls; no, it didn’t mean she’s not going to be dating boys, she might date anyone, boys or girls, or otherwise. That opened another can of worms, which she deflected for the time being. It took enough energy for her to convince them that bisexuality was a real thing without trying to explain that gender was a spectrum and not a binary, and she really wanted to get a book about it before she had that conversation with them. She wasn’t sure she knew how to explain it well at this point, all she knew was what felt right to her.

(She did end up getting a few books about it and started the slow and laborious process of educating her parents on the subject. They were going to be nothing but supportive and fully educated by the time Anwen met her future spouse _or so help her god_.)

***

Joining Torchwood was _everything_ , it was the moment she’d been waiting for her entire life, the turning point. Simultaneously, it was torture. 

Jack was there, in front of her, finally, within arm’s reach. Jack, showing off in that way he had, swishing around in his vintage military coat and smiling that dimpled smile that she used to dream about, the one that always made her feel better, and through it all, he didn’t know her. She couldn’t hug him, she couldn’t tell him how much he meant to her. She wasn’t even sure how much to tell him about her gift, or how fast to break the news. 

There were so many things she wanted to change. So much pain and death and heartbreak that she was hoping to prevent. Not to mention the biggest mistake she might make in her life. She was determined not to cheat on Rhys, no matter how hard keeping Torchwood from him for a year and a half would be.

She just had to find a balance. She’d need to give them all time to get to know her, and eventually she’d be able to tell them everything. And in the meantime, she’d do her best to make things better for all of them.

***

Her first attempt was unsuccessful, much like she expected it would be. Suzie was well on the road to self-destruction long before she could intervene, and she only had a day to try to do it, so the outcome was no surprise to her.

Seeing the pain in Jack’s expression, she wished she’d tried a little harder.

But she’d hardly had any information to go on. Unfortunately, she couldn’t control what she saw or when, and she’d only got crumbs in regards to Suzie’s fate. 

She did get a picture for the very next day, though. A pretty clear scene, a thoughtless mistake on her part leading to a young girl being possessed by… something. She had no idea what, but she knew it’d kill people. She could prevent it by being careful on the scene.

She hoped her first day on the job would go better than she’d seen in her vision.

***

They were so disappointed that she didn’t react to the SUV any more than she had reacted to the Hub or the weevils, it was all she could do not to laugh at them.

When the time came, she was careful. She walked the distance to where Owen was crouching and handed him the chisel instead of throwing it, and as she stepped away Owen drove it into the meteorite and released the alien gas anyway.

She cursed. Loudly.

***

Gwen had wanted so badly to change this one. She knew it was risky. She knew they didn’t have the resources or the know-how for it, but she’d tried anyway. She gave it her all, spent months trying to figure out a way, and when it came down to it, it didn’t make a lick of difference.

Ianto still broke in front of all of them. Jack still ordered him to kill whatever was left of the woman he loved. Lisa was still lost, and the Cyberman was still killed.

In the aftermath, once Ianto had been sent home, Gwen had raged against Jack for the way he’d handled it. For what he’d asked Ianto to do.

She hadn’t been able to keep up the confrontational tone for too long, though. It was obvious Jack had been hurt by Ianto’s betrayal, and that he was blaming himself for not noticing the distress he was under the whole time Ianto had been part of the team. 

Ah, guilt. Gwen could relate.

She still hadn’t told him about her own gift. It still didn’t feel right. She knew she’d be able to tell them when the time was right, but she still didn’t know when that’d be.

Not yet, at any rate. 

She’d initially gone to talk to Jack with the intention to make a case for leniency in dealing with Ianto. She’d been unsure how long it’d take Jack to forgive Ianto’s transgression, but as it turned out, it had been unnecessary. Jack understood love, and the sacrifices one would make for it. He’d already forgiven Ianto by the time Gwen marched into his office.

Jack forgave so easily. 

She did what she could, volunteered to help clean up even though it meant less time spent at home with Rhys, and offered to help Jack with Ianto, whatever was needed, from questioning him about what had happened, to checking in on him during his suspension. She wanted to be there for him, even if he didn’t consider her a friend just yet. They’d get there.

***

The first time Gwen made a scheduled house visit to Ianto during his suspension was on day eight of his banishment from the Hub. 

He surprised her that day. Not an easy task, to say the least.

“Come in,” Ianto had said at the door, “I’ll make you a coffee.”

“Oh, thank you. You don’t have to, really.”

He huffed. “Please. I know the sludge that the rest of the team makes when I’m not around. None of them ever did learn how to use the coffee machine.”

Gwen smiled at that. He was right, of course. Moreover, none of them ever _would_ learn; coffee was Ianto’s jurisdiction. “That’s true. But I don’t mean to be a bother-”

“I know what you meant. But I’d like to, it’d be a nice change of pace. I can make you tea if you’d prefer?”

Of course. Ianto worked through his trauma by being useful and by keeping busy. Shit, this suspension might not have been such a good idea after all. Then again, being back at the Hub so soon might not be any better. 

“Alright then,” Gwen gave in, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I’d love some of your coffee, actually. I do miss it.”

Ianto gave her a smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, but it was something. 

“Hmm,” she couldn’t hold back a happy noise when she took the first sip. “You have a _gift_ , Ianto. This is _amazing_.”

“It was the least I could do,” he replied. She could tell by the way he was standing that he wanted to put his hands on his hips but was holding himself back from doing it. 

Gwen tilted her head in question.

“Actually, I wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?” she asked, completely taken aback.

“You’re the newest member of the team, yet you stood up for me and for Lisa,” his voice almost broke, but he pushed through and kept talking. “You put yourself between Jack and me when he was angry and had his gun out. You’re the only one that tried to help her. Even after… even after what she almost did to you.” 

“Ianto…”

“So. I wanted to thank you. It means a lot to me.”

They were both barely holding back tears, and Gwen wanted so badly to give him a hug. But she knew it’d be overstepping at this point. So she held her mug with both hands and swallowed her overbearing affection for the man in front of her until a time when it’d be welcomed.

“Of course. I only wish I could have done more.”

“You did plenty,” Ianto told her, and she had to smile. 

He let the weight of the moment rest over them as he fixed his own cup of coffee, then he changed the subject to more casual topics. The small talk felt a little stilted, but she thought it might help anyway. Like practise. Even if he wasn’t quite feeling it, he was building up the metaphorical muscle. Eventually, he’d be able to use it without feeling the strain.

She wondered about what he’d said on her way home. She wondered if he’d still feel grateful to her once he learned she’d held some knowledge of what would happen and still had failed to change it.

(She should have known better than to doubt Ianto. When he loved, he held nothing back. He could be just as forgiving as Jack when it came to the people he loved.)

***

The right time turned out to be after the colossal mess that was their trip to the Brecon Beacons. 

She got off with nothing worse than a few scratches, so that had been a success at least, but the cannibals had still come way too close to cutting Ianto up in little pieces for her peace of mind.

She hadn’t known it was time until it was all over, while Ianto and Tosh were being checked over by Owen, but she didn’t say anything until she could get Jack alone. Thankfully, she was the last stop on their way back. So once he’d dropped off the others, she told Jack to take her back to the Hub with him. 

He gently refused, insisting on dropping her off at her place, saying Rhys would be waiting for her and that she needed the rest. He kept his eyes on the road as he spoke, not looking at her at all, which was very unlike him; his posture was off, a bit too stiff, and so was his tone. He was acting weird, so much so that Gwen worried she might have missed something important. She stared at him in confusion, trying to work out what it was.

It took her almost a full minute to figure out he thought she was trying to sleep with him.

Never one to worry about coming off as unladylike, she snorted loudly.

“I’m not trying to shag you, Harkness. I am _never_ going to try to shag you. I’m not going to cheat on my boyfriend, thank you. And if I _was_ , I wouldn’t have gone for you anyway. I would have gone for Owen.”

That caused him to look at her, jaw dropped, comically affronted.

Honestly, the ego of that man.

“ _Owen_?!”

“Jack, really-”

“You think Owen’s better looking than me?”

“No,” she said honestly. That shut him up. He sneaked a glance at her, as if trying to figure her out. Better nip that in the bud.

“I am not going to be cheating on Rhys. Not with you and not with Owen. It’s not happening. Anyway, that’s not why I said to take me to the Hub. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Jack read the seriousness in her tone and sobered. “Alright.”

***

Jack had been understandably suspicious. 

“You can see the future?” Jack asked, caught between disbelief and wariness.

“Yes. Not all of it,” she hurried to clarify. “I get flashes, mostly. Feelings and… Look, I know how this sounds,” she said in response to the face he was pulling. “But this is Torchwood. I’m sure you’ve heard worse. You _are_ worse. An immortal man from the future leading an alien-hunting organisation based in Wales? Sounds bonkers.”

That lit a fire under him, as she knew it would.

“What do you know about me?” Jack had stood up and was hovering menacingly over her. Gwen wasn’t at all fazed; she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I’ve been seeing little flashes of you since before I could walk, Jack. Do you have any idea what that’s like? I used to talk about you, about all of you, to my mates at school. My parents have crayon drawings of the five of us - the whole team - that I did as a kid. I’d tell them little stories about you, and they’d smile and nod and laugh about the crazy stories I came up with!”

“Why are you telling me now? Why not tell me when we first met? Better still, why not look for me before?” Jack challenged.

“I couldn’t!” she yelled.

“Why not!” he yelled back.

“I don’t know!”

They stared at each other in silence for several seconds. Gwen took that time to calm down and gather her wits again.

“I don’t know _why_. Sometimes I know I can’t do something because the mere thought of it makes my stomach turn. I knew I’d be able to tell you eventually, but I didn’t know until earlier tonight when it’d be.”

Jack studied her for a few moments longer, then straightened up.

“Come on,” he gestured she should follow him and exited his office.

“What? Why? Where are you going?” She scurried after him, of course. She’d follow where he led, always. Mostly. Unless he was being stupid, which did happen relatively frequently.

“To get… _this_!” he said triumphantly as he held a device he’d fished out of one of Tosh’s piles of alien tech in one hand.

“And what’s that?” Gwen asked with her eyebrows almost up to her hairline.

“Shouldn’t you know?” he asked mockingly.

“I _told_ you. I can only see flashes, I have to piece them together myself. And no, I haven’t seen anything about how this conversation goes, or about what that thing is.”

“It’s a lie detector. Best one in the galaxy. Tosh has been studying it to see if we can replicate some of its functions; no luck so far, but we do still have this one. Now back to my office, I have more questions for you.”

Huh. That might help push things along. If all it took for Jack to believe her was to strap her to a lie detector, then she’d gladly do it.

Turns out she didn’t even need to be strapped to it, all he had to do was point it at her, and a little light would indicate whether she was telling the truth or not. 

She was only a little offended when the first thing Jack asked her after making sure it was working was if she meant the team any harm.

“ _No_. And I don’t just _not_ mean the team any harm. I _love_ the team. I love all of you. You are my family, and I would die for any of you just as I’d die for Rhys or my parents. Yes, I knew I’d be joining Torchwood, but I didn’t have any ulterior motives for joining. I still don’t. I just know that this is where I belong, with all of you.”

Jack had been mollified by her answers regarding: her intentions towards the team and humanity, her values, her gift and how she’d been using it, her origin, and her species (he insisted on putting her through some tests just to be sure, but of course they all came back negative, because she was _human_ , as she’d _said_ , _numerous times_ ). 

“So you _can_ change the timeline? At least sometimes?”

“Yes, but not consistently,” she admitted. “I think talking about things before they happen makes it harder to change them.”

“Convenient,” Jack complained.

“No, Jack, it’s _not_ convenient! Do you think I wouldn’t prefer to come to you with these things and have your help in trying to prevent disaster, now that I have you in my life? You think I don’t want the team’s help with this?” 

Chastised, Jack gave her a nod. Gwen sat back, deflated. 

Neither of them was angry, really, they were just overwrought and irritable from the terrible day they’d had, followed by the emotional toll of Gwen’s confession. Had it only been today that they were all joking around as they set up the tents in the Beacons? Gwen could have used more foreknowledge about what they’d be facing down there. She’d barely had a few seconds’ warning to jump out of the way to avoid being shot, and that had been pretty much _all_ she’d got. 

She hadn’t even known it wasn’t aliens they were facing. She hadn’t known how close they’d come to butchering Ianto.

She must have looked as exhausted as she felt, because the next thing out of Jack’s mouth was, surprisingly, a reprieve.

“Okay. I think that’s enough for tonight. Go home. Rest. Don’t come in until midday at the earliest. I’ll have more questions for you, but that can wait until the rest of the team has gone home tomorrow.”

Nodding her thanks, Gwen got up, wondering how long it’d take her to find a cab to take her home. She’d call a taxi service, she didn’t want to be standing around on the Plass like this, she might fall asleep on one of the benches if she wasn’t careful.

Before she could leave, however, Jack surprised her again by pulling her close and giving her a massive hug.

God, how she’d missed his hugs. He gave the best hugs, Jack. She’d always known so. 

He squeezed her tight for a little longer, and she squeezed back, feeling like a weight had been lifted off her when she wasn’t looking. 

Eventually, he stepped back, smiling a quiet but truly radiant smile. “Come on. I’ll call you a cab. You’re in no condition to drive.”

She smiled back and didn’t argue.

***

“It’s almost lunchtime,” Owen griped. “Where’s the teaboy?” 

They’d all been more irritable since their workload had seemingly doubled, but Owen was by far the most annoying of them all, she thought. 

Of course, he thought the same thing about her. It wasn’t really his fault, or hers, their personalities just clashed sometimes. And things had been tense lately, so they were clashing more often.

“I’ll order lunch if you stop complaining,” she told him, patience shorter than usual. “Ianto’s looking through old files to help us deal with that thing in the warehouse, so let him be. He’s faster than any of us when it comes to sifting through the archives.”

Owen grumbled under his breath, but didn’t disagree, which for him was as good as explicit agreement.

After she’d placed the order, Gwen went down to the archives to find Ianto. He was exactly where she thought he’d be, elbow deep in files in one of the desks in the station he’d claimed as his as soon as he started working for Torchwood 3.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Slowly, but getting there.” He didn’t look up from the files, but she knew he was paying attention. 

“Good. I’ve ordered takeaway, so try to fit in a break in about thirty minutes.”

“I’ll eat later,” he tried to wave her off.

“Hmm,” she pretended to think it over. “Nope! You’ll be eating with us in thirty minutes.” He was too skinny as it was. She knew he’d been skipping meals and foregoing sleep far too often lately.

He sighed. “Gwen…”

“The words you’re looking for are ‘yes, ma’am’, and ‘thank you, ma’am.’” 

He finally looked up from his files to throw her a withering stare. 

She stared back, defiant.

The corner of his mouth lifted in amusement.

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am,” the sarcasm was barely noticeable, but indisputably there.

Gwen beamed down at him, unbothered.

He leaned back in his chair, apologetic. “Sorry, I know I’ve been…” he gestured vaguely around, but didn’t elaborate. He didn’t have to.

“We’ve _all_ been,” she admitted. “If he doesn’t come back soon, I might give in to the temptation to throttle Owen. And then we’d have to find a replacement doctor and I _hate_ doing interviews.”

Ianto’s pained little smile broke her heart.

Gwen reached to hold his hand, willing her certainty to reach him through the touch. “He _is_ coming back, Ianto.”

He looked away, unconvinced, but he didn’t argue with her.

“He _is_.”

He met her eyes again, not disagreeing, but not agreeing with her either. He squeezed her hand once before letting it go.

“What did you order?”

She let him change the subject. She was learning to pick her battles.

***

Owen was furious with her. What else was new. 

Gwen didn’t care. She stood by what she’d done and she’d do it again. That wasn’t what was bothering her. He’d come around.

Her head felt weird. She wasn’t sure if the change had taken root yet. The dizziness meant it had worked, but it didn’t feel like it was fixed. 

Jack had been giving her appraising glances all day, but he hadn’t asked. He knew better than to ask before she brought it up.

Martha was going back to UNIT and the whole team was sad to see her go. 

Gwen couldn’t focus, though. There were open threads, she needed to find them before the whole thing unravelled.

It took her an entire day and a restless night before she saw it: a young woman standing on the top of a building, crying, in mourning. Blonde hair, red blood on her wedding dress. A photograph, dropped to the ground. She was going to kill herself. The open thread.

She shot up, threw on whatever was closest to the bed, and told Rhys to go back to sleep, that she’d be back by morning.

When the time had come, Gwen had not hesitated to shoot Dr. Copley twice in the heart, Owen’s protests notwithstanding. Owen had been right pissed, as he’d been hoping to talk him down, but Gwen knew that he would have failed, and what’s more he’d have died trying. 

But Owen’s death, awful as it would have been for him and the rest of the team, would have been the catalyst that saved this one life, and now that Gwen had prevented it, there was nothing to stop this woman from stepping off a building. 

Nothing but Gwen herself.

She wasn’t home by morning, but she did send Rhys a text apologising and letting him know she was okay. 

She got breakfast with Maggie before she went to the Hub.

***

“Stop!” Jack came running through the chapel’s doors like the dramatic bastard he was. Just like Gwen had warned Rhys he would. “Stop it! Stop the wedding!”

“I know you’re never wrong about these things,” Rhys said through his teeth, “but this time, I really wanted you to be wrong.”

“Me too,” Gwen muttered under her breath, and squeezed Rhys’ hands between hers. “Bloody Torchwood.”

“Hold on!” Jack was yelling as he got to the altar. “Gwen, believe me, I’m sorry. But this has to stop now.”

“Right,” Gwen said, lifting the side of her dress not to step on it. “Let’s convene somewhere more private, shall we?” She kept her other hand on Rhys’. He was coming with them.

“Jack!” Mary exclaimed from her seat. 

“Not now, Mum!” Gwen tried to stifle the outburst. It didn’t really work.

“ _Jack_?! _Captain_ Jack?!”

Jack looked behind him, then turned back to Gwen in disbelief. “You told her about me?”

“She has a few dozen pictures drawn by me from ages 3 to 12 featuring you,” she gritted through her teeth. This shouldn’t be news to Jack at this point, it’s not like she hadn’t told him about her gift ages ago.

“Right.”

“Okay, I’ll deal with your Mum,” Rhys started to say, but Gwen interrupted him.

“No! You have to come with us.” Both Jack and Rhys knew better than to contradict her when she used that tone, so neither did. “Let’s bring her with us,” she said as quietly as she could. “My Dad too. They won’t let this go without an explanation right now and we’ll probably have to retcon them anyway.”

Rhys looked at her sadly. He knew how much she’d hate having to use the drug on her parents.

“You sure?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” Gwen confirmed. “Let’s move. Now.”

She could hear her mother still ranting in the background, her father half trying to calm her down and half trying to understand what was happening.

“Mum, Dad,” Gwen said loudly, cutting through the rumble of gossiping voices coming up with their own narratives to explain Jack’s interruption. “With me.” And with that she led her future husband, her boss and her parents to the door, out into the reception area and towards the stairs. 

“You’re really him. You’re Captain Jack,” her mother was saying. At least she’d waited until they were out of the chapel this time.

“Uh… hi?” 

“Gwen!” Mary exclaimed.

“I know, Mum. I’ll explain once we’re in my room, okay?” She started climbing the stairs, still holding her skirts up with one hand.

“That’s Jack!”

“Yes, Mum.”

“How can that be Jack!?” His father joined in.

“In my room!”

“Rhys!” Mary tried once her daughter failed to provide an explanation.

“Yes, Mary,” Rhys said appeasingly.

“You _knew_ ,” she realised the truth of it as she said it.

Rhys threw a look at Gwen, unsure what to say to that.

“You did!” Mary crowed triumphantly.

“Okay, we’re almost there, Mum, can you wait thirty seconds, _please_?” Gwen didn’t want to reveal anything where she might be overheard, and god knew there were bound to be listening ears trying to catch some juicy details after the spectacle Jack had made at the chapel.

“Okay, Jack, you first,” Gwen prompted as soon as they’d made it into the room and closed the door behind them. 

“There were two of them, and the second one is around here, waiting to…” Jack side-eyed Gwen’s parents, “get its child back”.

Mary was staring blatantly at Jack, comparing him, Gwen realised, to her memories of Gwen’s Jack, to all the things she said about him when she was a kid, to all the pictures she’d drawn of him back then.

“Shit, mate,” Rhys interjected, reading between the lines and worried about Gwen’s wellbeing.

“Gwen,” Geraint spoke up, just as shaken as his wife by the revelation that their daughter’s childhood imaginary friend was apparently real and had interrupted her wedding.

“Yeah,” Gwen said, eyes on Jack and mind still on the damned Nostrovite. “Yeah, okay.” 

“Well, he _does_ have a great jaw,” Mary muttered.

Jack beamed at her. “You said that about me?” He waggled his eyebrows.

“I was five!” Gwen defended herself.

At that moment, the door opened with a bang, Jack turned to point his gun at the entrance, but lowered it before it was even properly pointed at anything.

“Jack, we found-” A high-pitched scream cut him off. Mary was staring at the newcomer with a hand over her mouth. 

“Um.”

“Ianto! You’re Ianto!” Mary said, stunned.

“Yes?” Ianto searched the faces of the rest of them, bewildered.

“Oh, you _are_ handsome!” Mary blurted out. And young, she didn’t say out loud. _So young._

Ianto’s eyes grew another fraction, much like his bewilderment.

“Mum,” Gwen grabbed her mother’s hand, trying to assuage her unease.

Jack, unhelpful as ever, chuckled. “She’s got a point.” He leered at Ianto, who was still standing at the door.

“Walk in and close the door, mate,” said Rhys, who was beyond a doubt the most reasonable of the lot.

“Uh, Tosh and Owen were not far behind me,” Ianto informed them, though he did close the door as instructed. Mary made another high-pitched noise at his words.

“Good lord,” Geraint said.

Gwen moved to stand before her parents, her loving parents who gave her everything and who always stood by her, even when she didn’t have the words to explain why she did something, or why things mattered to her. She owed them this. She wasn’t sure if they’d be able to keep these memories, but that was a problem for future Gwen. Right now, she had to do what she could in the moment. 

“Mum, Dad, you’ve known for a while that I can… sometimes, I know things before they happen.”

“But-how?” Mary asked, still taking in details about Jack’s coat and Ianto’s suit, still obviously matching them to little Gwen’s stories. “How could you-since you were a _toddler_? Oh god, Rhys too! It _wasn’t_ a coincidence...”

“Sweetheart,” Geraint spoke, expression sober. “Your dreams…”

“Oh, no. Gwen, your nightmares,” Mary covered her mouth with one hand again, horrified, and Gwen knew she must be remembering all those nights when she’d woken them up screaming, sobbing in terror and barely able to comprehend some of the things that came to her in her dreams.

“No, no, no, no, no! Mum,” Gwen held her own hand to cover Mary’s mouth now. “Don’t say anything! Don’t mention it out loud! This is important, okay, this is _so_ important, don’t say _anything_ I might have said about my nightmares back then, either of you! Okay? Swear! Swear to me. I’m not sure how it works, but it’s harder to change if it’s said out loud. If it’s discussed. Please, you can’t-” her voice broke for a second, emotion overwhelming her. “You _can’t_. Say. Any of it. Okay? _Please_.”

Mary was nodding, tears in her eyes. 

“Swear to me. Not even to each other. Not even where I can’t hear. I can’t risk it! _Swear_.”

“We swear, sweetheart,” Geraint vowed.

“We swear,” Mary echoed.

“You have to. You have to be really careful,” Gwen insisted.

“We will be,” Mary promised.

Jack’s expression had turned grim. He didn’t know what Gwen might have dreamed of as a child, but he could guess. Nightmares about the people her parents now recognised were never imaginary after all, and which Gwen wanted desperately to change? A bad fate befalling someone on the team. Possibly more than one of them.

“Jack, I saw the shapeshifter,” that was Tosh, who’d opened the door only to almost hit Ianto with it. “She’s a woman wearing… black,” she finished as she surveyed the scene. As Ianto had stepped aside, he’d revealed the tableau before her.

“Right, Ianto, stay with Gwen and Rhys. Tosh, with me. We’re going to find her before she finds Gwen.” Jack spared one more meaningful look for Gwen, checking that she was okay (as much as the circumstances allowed, anyway) and that she didn’t have any objections to this plan. Sometimes, she’d get a flash of insight, or a feeling, a kind of warning system telling her to avoid something, or to stop something from happening. At times, it was very explicit, a vision of what would happen in clear technicolor; other times, it was barely a sense of dread. 

Not this time, apparently. She nodded her blessing for his plan, and off they went.

***

“Jack likes Ianto’s suits,” Mary commented from her table. She was watching the dancefloor, where Ianto had asked Jack to dance. It looked intimate. Not _crass_ , or anything. Just… like a private moment.

Geraint looked at the two men pressed together, swaying gently to the beat of the slow song playing in the background. “He thinks he looks handsome in them,” finished Geraint. He remembered that one, too. It had stuck on their minds because the incongruity of it had called their attention. They’d thought it was funny, the kind of blunder only a little girl who didn’t understand how men talked about each other might make. It had never been a mistake, though, had it?

“I wonder if he has a stopwatch hidden on that waistcoat,” Mary wondered out loud.

Geraint huffed a laugh. “Probably.”

Gwen approached their table with an abashed smile. She looked radiant. So happy, despite the scare with the alien (aliens! Who’d have thought!) and the disaster that had been her wedding. 

She sat down heavily. She might be happy but the busy afternoon had still taken a toll on her. 

“So,” she said.

“Aliens,” Geraint stated.

“And your childhood imaginary friends were real all along,” Mary added.

“And all of you catch aliens together,” Geraint finished, still stuck on the whole extraterrestrial life thing.

Gwen made her trademark got-me-there face. “Yep,” she nodded, her eyes too wide.

Mary laughed, relief mixing with the absurdity of the situation, and her husband and daughter joined her soon enough. 

“Gwen, why didn’t you tell us?”

“Mum… I didn’t know how. When I was a kid, I didn’t even realise you didn’t believe they were real until I was a bit older. I tried to tell you a few times, tried to make you understand…”

“That time you went to that park, in Newport,” Mary realised.

Gwen made a pained face. “Yeah.”

“What? When you ran away?” Geraint asked, a little lost.

“I _didn’t ‘_ run away’, Dad. I told you, I just needed to go there.”

“What happened?” Mary asked. She’d asked Gwen this question many times, but this time she felt she might actually get the real answer. She remembered what Gwen had said, back then. It all amounted to ‘I needed to be there’, but she hadn’t explained _why_.

Gwen’s face soured. “Ianto.”

“Ianto?” Geraint asked, looking askance at the couple on the dancefloor, still wrapped up on each other, lost to the world.

“He can’t have been very old,” Mary judged. “He’s younger than you, isn’t he?” She remembered this from Gwen’s childhood. Ianto was a few years younger, and Gwen had felt protective of him. That had only become more obvious after that terrible nightmare.

“He’s five years younger than me,” Gwen admitted. “He was seven then.”

Mary was horrified. “Gwen! If a child was in danger, you should have told us-!”

“I was twelve! And I did try to tell you. But I’d figured out by then that you didn’t quite believe me when I told you these things, and you wouldn’t agree to take me there, no matter how much I insisted that it was important!” Gwen sighed. 

Her mother looked guilty now, which she had no reason to be. 

“Don’t look like that, Mum. His _life_ wasn’t in danger. I wouldn’t have stopped at anything if his life had been in danger, you know that, Mum.” Gwen’s jaw had set, in that same stubborn expression she used to make as a child, and Mary knew, Gwen was telling the truth. 

She’d have made it happen somehow. If Ianto’s life had been in danger, she’d have stopped at nothing. Mary was so, so proud of her. Her little Gwen. How had she missed all this?

“What happened? Can you tell us?” She asked her.

“He just-he… someone was going to break his leg. It’d hurt really bad and scare him a lot, he was still so little, and I thought I could stop it. I wanted to spare him that.”

“...You couldn’t do it?” Geraint asked kindly.

“No, I did,” Gwen huffed. “I intervened, and I stopped it from happening. And then a few weeks later, that same someone broke his arm instead. Somewhere I couldn’t just show up, so it’s not like I could interfere again. Not that I’d have such an easy time sneaking out again, you two were still watching me like a hawk.”

“Ah.” 

“Yes. I’d stopped one, but by doing that I changed the timeline. It was a small ripple, but it made waves. Not in big things, I don’t think, but in his personal life, there were a few changes.” 

With his father breaking his arm in a way that couldn’t be explained away as an ‘accident’, Ianto didn’t buy any of his father’s excuses for his behaviour, and he became wary of him earlier than he would have otherwise. As a result, he left home a little earlier, not long after taking his GCSEs. 

Her interference didn’t seem to have prompted any other big changes, though, Gwen had been relieved to learn.

“It made me realise that stopping something bad from happening does not mean the bad thing’s disappeared, it might still come up in other ways. And there are unforeseen consequences if I do manage to change something.”

“But you don’t always manage?”

Gwen exhaled loudly. “No. There were a few things I tried to change that didn’t work. Not even how it didn’t fully work with Ianto that time at the park, that time I still managed to change that point in time. These ones… sometimes I just don’t have enough information about them, or I can’t figure out a way to prevent them. Some of them, it’s like they’re stuck. They won’t budge, no matter what I do. And it’s only worse when I talk about them beforehand.”

Mary put her hand over her daughter’s in silent support.

“So, I can’t make that mistake again,” Gwen said, choking up. “This is too important. I need to be careful.”

“Of course, darling.” Mary squeezed her daughter’s hand. 

“Ey, ey, what’s occurring here?” Rhys announced himself. 

Rhys, the love of her daughter’s life, future father of her children; the man who Gwen had been looking forward to marrying since she could barely walk. It boggled Mary’s mind to think about.

“Nothing much,” Gwen wiped off the few stubborn tears that clung to her eyes. “Just finishing a much overdue conversation.”

Gwen shared one last smile with her parents, squeezed her mum’s hand once more in thanks, then got up and demanded her newly wedded husband dance with her again. Rhys obliged her happily enough.

Soon, Mary and Geraint would be among the only nine people still conscious in the room, but they didn’t know it yet. 

***

It was day five of the biggest crisis they had ever had to tackle as Torchwood, and Gwen was about ready to crawl out of her skin.

By the time they arrived at the Davieses, the sun had begun to set. 

The crisis appeared to be over, but even so Jack had insisted on talking his way into borrowing the helicopter, otherwise it would have taken them another two hours to make the trip. On a better day, Gwen might have tried to reign him in, but as it was, she was just as anxious to have Ianto within her sight as Jack, so she didn’t argue. The trip from the landing pad to Ianto’s sister’s house only took fifteen minutes. Gwen felt every second.

Ianto was waiting for them outside the house. 

With a dizzying feeling like a snap, her world fitted neatly into place around her. 

Jack didn’t even bother parking, just roughly left the car they’d been lent half up the sidewalk and threw himself out of the car and into Ianto’s arms. Gwen was a few steps behind him, and that only because she was on the passenger's side. Rhys would take care of the car if need be, bless him. Gwen didn’t know what she’d do without him.

Ianto, sensing that Jack was barely holding it together, made eye contact with Gwen over Jack’s shoulder, eyes wide in alarm. Gwen smiled and gestured everything had turned out okay. She wasn’t sure how convincing she was, as all the stress she’d been under reached a tipping point once she rested her eyes on him and she started crying before she’d finished the gesture. Seconds later, he was in her arms, sandwiched between Jack and her. Alive. Gloriously, wonderfully alive.

They stayed like that for a while.

Jack was the first to move away. Ianto let him go, and Gwen took no time turning him so she could look at him face to face. She held his jaw in her hands, using him to anchor herself in this reality, letting herself feel his presence not just with her eyes and her hands but also with that elusive sixth sense that had been with her all her life... God, it was so worth it, the fear, the nightmares, all that terrible foreknowledge she could only sometimes use to make the world a tiny bit better, and the weight of every single failure; it was all worth it for this here, for her best friend warm and breathing and safe right before her.

“ _Oh_ , Gwen,” he pulled her close, just a small pressure but it was enough for her to collapse against him. He held her tight, holding her upright when she felt she might fall apart. He’d figured it out. Of course he had, he was clever like that. She’d had to be so careful, she couldn’t let him know beforehand, couldn’t risk any whiff of it breaking out, and he was so perceptive and knew her so well. But she’d done it. She’d done it.

She clung to him, revelling in the feeling. 

“We still need to be careful, especially the next few months,” she got out through the lump in her throat. “But it’s fixed. This one’s fixed, I can feel it. It worked.” She squeezed him as hard as she could before finally letting him go. But not far. Never far, she needed him close. There were still a few stubborn tears in her eyes, but she could breathe easier than she had in days.

“Thank you,” Ianto told her, as if he had to thank her for changing the timeline to save his life. As if she hadn’t done it for the selfish reason that she couldn’t stand to lose her best friend so soon; as if she wouldn’t have done it for Jack regardless. Her head was a mess, she’d need to crash soon. 

“Owen and Tosh?” Ianto asked, and it was only then that Gwen realised that a woman that must be Ianto’s sister had walked out of the house and Jack had joined her. 

“A bit banged up, but fine,” Rhys answered when it became clear Gwen wasn’t up to explaining just yet. “They stayed behind to deal with the fallout once these two had made sure Torchwood was given back its privileges. The Queen showing up in person sped that right up.”

Jack was talking to Rhiannon quietly, putting up a good impression of being collected and in charge. Gwen could see the cracks. 

“Liz showed up?” Ianto sounded impressed. He hadn’t let go of her hand. 

To think, he used to be so uncomfortable with physical affection. He’d changed so much in the past three years, he was so smooth at accommodating her and Jack’s and Tosh’s displays of affection these days, her heart swelled to think about it. Owen was still working through his own issues, but she knew when he got over it, Ianto would be just as receptive with him.

Rhys snorted. “So you’re on first name basis with her, too, huh? Your boss raised up a storm back in London by taking all sorts of liberties with her. It worked, though; he made his point.”

“How…” Ianto spared a look at Jack, then at Gwen, before addressing Rhys once more. “How did you stop them?”

“Not sure, actually. I didn’t quite follow it,” Rhys admitted. “I’m sure they’ll explain it better than me, but it was some sort of broadcast? On the same wavelength they’d been using, I think. Jack and that researcher bloke managed to transmit it back.”

Before Rhys could elaborate any more, however, Jack and Ianto’s sister started walking towards them, so Rhys astutely shut up. They still hadn’t worked out what story to release, nor had they decided how much Ianto’s sister would be allowed to know about Torchwood _or_ the 456 incident.

Jack better be prepared to let Ianto’s family keep the memories of what had happened, though, or Gwen was going to be having words with him.

 _He will,_ she could suddenly see, a few details already taking shape in her mind’s eye. 

_Rhiannon inviting Jack to dinner so she can get to know her little brother’s boyfriend, Jack winning the kids over in under ten minutes, Rhiannon and her husband not too long after that. A house, mostly empty and dusty with disuse, the team sitting around a table as they discuss the possibility of amending the Torchwood policy of complete secrecy in the aftermath of such a public attack. Most people still won’t know what had happened, why their governments had tried to take their children or why all the children in the world had stopped all at once and repeated a mysterious message in sync._

_Torchwood will continue to try to keep their work a secret, but some exceptions might be made, on a case-by-case basis. Team members’ families might be given certain privileges, provided Jack and Gwen have vetted them first. Owen will decline the offer, but Tosh will ask for more time to consider it._

_Jack and Ianto will move in together. A new place. Rhiannon will insist on throwing them a house-warming get-together, and it’s a good thing most of the team will be in attendance because halfway through the barbacue two rogue aliens show up raising a ruckus._

_Ianto holding Anwen, standing next to her hospital bed - he will hold the tiny baby oh so carefully against his chest and he will stare down at her with naked wonder as he very delicately rubs her back. His hands will look huge on her little body, though not as much as Jack’s._

_Owen will pretend to be too busy checking her medical file to hold the baby. Then he will pretend he’s only holding her to check her over, as if everyone at the hospital hadn’t already assured them she was a perfectly healthy baby. Tosh will rock Anwen to sleep, and when the baby wakes up complaining as she’s put back in her crib to sleep, Tosh will pick her up again and rock her gently for the next hour, until she needs to go back to the Hub._

_Ianto, reading out loud to Anwen when she’s a toddler, Jack staring at them from the doorway with the most smitten look on his face. Tosh, teaching Anwen how to play with the new puzzle toys she’d got her for her first birthday. Owen, holding Anwen and laughing without even a hint of inhibition, looking happier than Gwen could remember seeing when the baby throws one of her toys and it hits Ianto on the face._

Gwen could feel her whole body unclench with the revelations. 

It was good, it had to be a particularly strong current for her to get so many flashes of the future this early after a change. It meant the new timeline had been firmly moored. She’d still stay alert, of course, she needed to be vigilant, for all of them, but this was a great sign.

Her family was safe, at least for now. She reached out her free hand to Rhys, who took it in his without hesitation. 

Her family was safe. 

She could breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> You can like/reblog on tumblr [here](https://this-is-quite-homoerotic.tumblr.com/post/630458870384459776/fic-dont-you-know-youve-haunted-me-for-years)!


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